Posted by Leslie on March 11th, 2010 | 2 Comments

There seems to be an ongoing debate about how to calculate word count on manuscripts. I think it depends on the publisher and how they are formatting your book. So far, all of my books have been published by electronic publishers as ebooks before going to print. These publishers use the word count given by the word processing program.

Right now that word count is about 32,000+ for The Iron Heart.

However, the bigger NYC publishers, who send books to print first (usually as mass market) use the old 250 words per page word count. You could have anywhere from 100 – 350 actually words on that page, but on a printed book it’ll format the same based on the one inch margin, double-spacing, and 25 lines.

Using that formula, I have about 37,000+ words for The Iron Heart.

Which is right? Does it depend on which publisher I am targeting? May not seem like a lot by 5000 words can make a difference in plotting out the novel. I want my mid-point to happen at around 45,000 words. So am I 13K away from that or 8K away from it?

I guess I’ll have to meet in the middle and plan my midpoint in about another 10,000 words. Or stop obsessing about it (*coughLisaSpindlercough*) and just write the story.